A supporter of tyrant Vladimir Putin has spoken out about the explosion in St Petersburg, describing the victim as a “saint”.
Blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, real name Maxim Fomin, was killed in the incident, which also injured 16 other people, earlier today.
He is said to have been handed a statuette of himself which had the bomb hidden inside.
Tatarsky is said to have been giving a lecture in the Street Food Bar No. 1 cafe in St. Petersburg when he was killed in the explosion.
Putin supporter Alexander Dugin - whose daughter Darya Dugina was also killed in a bomb explosion - posted a picture of her Tatarsky and wrote: "This is how the history of real Russian saints is created.
“Real. Not fictitious. Not sucked from the finger. Beating from the heart.
“If it is not holiness, then there is no holiness".
Law enforcement agents told Russian news agency TASS "an improvised explosive device went off in a cafe in St Petersburg was stuffed with submunitions."
An eyewitness said: "Suddenly the explosive wave erupted, smoke was everywhere, and people ran. I ran out into the street.
“When I went back to look for my phone, I saw three or four lying on the floor.”
Another said: ”There were about 100 people.
“A [woman called] Nastya was sitting at a table. She said she was an artist and wanted to show the heroes of Putin’s special military operation.
“She went there, took a big box, and gave it to him. It was gilded. He said thank you and put it next to him.
“She sat down in her place, and three minutes later there was an explosion.
“Everyone was running...this Nastya did not seem to have left in advance.”
BAZA media reported that the explosion was radio-activated.
Russia's Tass news agency said the blogger had been filing text and video reports from Ukraine as well as from the Kremlin.
Last year Tatarsky said in the Kremlin last year: "We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will rob everyone as necessary.
"Just as we like it."
Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov said of his death: “Fomin is a former citizen of Ukraine, sentenced in 2011 to 12 years in prison for an armed robbery of a bank in the Donbas.
“He was released from the zone in 2014 by Russian troops, under the obligation to fight against Ukraine.
“Fomin did not sit long in the trenches and became a blogger and one of the symbols of the Russian occupation.
“ Fomin was invited on December 22 to Putin's speech in the Kremlin among the representatives of the Russian elite.
“His liquidation is a serious blow to Russian propaganda.”
